'Serving time,' 'in jail' are not the same

The Record's "In Our Opinion" of March 14 conveniently misinformed readers as to the actual wording of the recent Pew Center report concerning prison inmate population in this country.

The Pew Center report states, "more than one in every 100 adults in America are in jail or prison." That does not mean more than one in every 100 American adults are serving time, as the Record writes in its editorial.

Given the indisputable fact that four out of every 10 prisoners in California alone are known illegal aliens, any reasonable person can conclude that our jails and prisons are not housing American citizens at historic levels.

In truth, we are incarcerating tens of thousands of other nations' criminal citizens who happen to be in this country illegally.

The Pew Center and the Pocono Record appear to share the same leftist agenda on the subject of incarceration. That's fine, but factual data does not support their claims.